This Scottish stunner was my favourite course I performed this 12 months

I want to dwell out extra days just like the one this summer time after I performed the Ailsa Course at Trump Turnberry for the primary time. Once I give it some thought now, impressed by the sundown photographs on my cellphone, I’m reminded of the innocence (and ignorance) I felt, principally as a result of I had no concept a Covid analysis was coming. 

While you traipse round Scotland with a sniffle, everybody tells you to take a hay fever pill. Agh is johst the pohlen is goht ya. However in my case, no pill was going to avoid wasting me. An actual fever was on its approach quickly sufficient. I had just some extra hours of normalcy to spare. 

Which is why they had been so effectively spent on one of many best golf programs on this planet. The Ailsa is greatest often called the place the place Stewart Cink made (however actually spoiled) golf historical past, beating 59-year-old Tom Watson in a playoff for the 2009 Open Championship. It was unimaginable to not take into consideration that whereas on website, particularly as a result of lots of the rivals within the Open at Troon had been ripping down the Ayrshire coast for a knock round Turnberry. 

Scottie Scheffler, Adam Scott and Sam Burns had all gotten out over the weekend. Luke Donald had snuck out only a couple teams forward of ours. I puzzled if (and even hoped that) the routing would allow us to cross paths with the European Ryder Cup captain. Keegan Bradley had simply been introduced because the U.S. captain, and I knew Luke had some ideas. 

However that’s when Turnberry took over, and I quickly forgot that Donald was forward of us. The huge dunes, gorse and heather will try this to you, working as boundary bumpers to your golf ball but additionally centering your consideration. You scale on high of them to hit tee balls and play to greens reduce into them. There’s so much to like about these high-dune programs — Cruden Bay is one other — as the trail house is all the time abundantly clear. For those who play waywardly — in contrast to at your tree-lined parkland American course — right here you’ll all the time see your ball down. It’s possible you’ll not discover it within the fescue, however at the least you already know the place to look (and the place to take a drop). 

There are lots of hallmarks of Turnberry price clamoring about. The course actually begins sprinting on the par-3 4th, your first alongside the coast of the Irish Sea, if you begin to respect the distant Isle of Arran. It hits hardest on the eighth, ninth and tenth — a par-4, par-3, par-5 stretch that takes you as near the ocean as doable. By the ninth is the long-lasting lighthouse and a shoreline the place we discovered locals having fun with the setting solar. 

Partly because of the prohibitive greens price, you’re not going to search out many individuals gaming it each night time at Turnberry. The worth is extremely steep — approaching 4 digits — however for us there was a silver lining. A foursome of friends forward of us had been itching for a sport, so that they invited us as much as play inward with them, from the twelfth gap on, in a sixsome. 

As a rule-follower and former golf-club employee myself, the proposal made me uncomfortable. However there wasn’t a soul behind us and never a push cart within the group. A upkeep staffer drove by and instructed us the place was ours. It was baggage on our backs as we battled the clouds that started to masks the sunshine.

This type of scene stands out to plenty of us American golf writers as a result of it feels so totally different than what we’re used to at dwelling, and in addition as a result of it appears to occur in Scotland on repeat. The windy afternoon settling into a peaceful breeze as you play your 18th tee shot at 9:49 p.m. The sky over there appears completely prepared to show pink.

An analogous vibe settled in 24 hours later as a colleague and I ran round Prestwick. You haven’t any selection at that time however to overlook about your rating and snap psychological pictures of the surrounds as a result of it appears like a portray has been created round you, and it’ll be fairly some time earlier than you come again. And that’s OK. After closing our spherical with 4 pars, a birdie and my double bogey, a sneezing match overcame me on the stroll to our rental automobile. Covid had formally arrived, however I wasn’t about to let it break the temper.